DRUG COURTS FACE UNCERTAIN FISCAL FUTURE IN BUDGET PLANS

Faced with an estimated $3.8 billion budget deficit, the General Assembly
has called for drastically reduced funding for treatment for drug
criminals, a move that could spell the end of drug court programs in some
Virginia localities.

Drug courts are an alternative to jail or probation for non-violent drug
addicts. The courts place offenders in court-supervised drug treatment
programs and monitor them while their addictions are overcome.

Committees in both chambers already have laid out budgets recommending cuts
to drug courts so deep that leaders of the 13 court-supervised treatment
programs expect the money to be yanked and are scrambling to find it
somewhere else.

"The legislators are out for everything they can get and these are just
programs in an array of programs deemed non-essential. We're very worried,"
said Charles S. Sharp, Fredericksburg's commonwealth's attorney and
president of the Virginia Drug Court Association.

The House of Delegates' $50.5 billion, two-year budget recommends moving $6
million previously earmarked for criminal justice and drug treatment
programs into the general fund. The Senate's budget earmarks $1.28 million
for spending on drug courts or on general district court clerks, but
officials indicate it is unlikely the money will go to the courts.

"This is just one part of a larger problem, the virtual elimination of
money for all drug treatment," Dave Chapman, Charlottesville's
commonwealth's attorney, said Friday.

Del. R. Steven Landes, R-Weyers Cave, said legislators concluded that
programs such as drug court, the gun violence reduction initiative Project
Exile, the law enforcement and drug treatment project Sabre and similar
grant-supported initiatives aren't essential to meeting public safety needs.

The House budget recommends cutting funding for such programs, as well as
for the Offender Aid and Restoration office, a pre-trial probation service
that serves as a conduit between drug treatment providers and courts.

"It's kind of like a household budget. You go out to movies and out to eat
when times are good. But when you're laid off or have a reduction in
salary, you make use of only the core services you need to survive," Landes
said.

In response to the cuts, drug courts across the state are considering other
options, including turning to private donors.

"We're starting to look at forming a nonprofit and drawing private and
corporate funding in order to keep going," said Tara Kunkel, administrator
for the $360,000-a-year Chesterfield County and Colonial Heights Drug
Court. Similar considerations are under way in Charlottesville and in
Fredericksburg, which has two drug courts, one for juveniles and one for
adults.

First set up in 1989 in Dade County, Fla., drug courts have multiplied to
about 1,200 nationwide. Supporters say they save money by treating
non-violent drug addicts who are better served by learning discipline and
self-confidence while controlling their addiction than by going to jail,
which costs more, or being put on probation, which costs less but provides
less supervision.

Addicts who opt for drug court agree soon after their arrest to plead
guilty to their felonies and join a court-supervised drug-treatment
program. The terms of the programs vary depending on the locality, but in
Charlottesville and Albemarle County the participants attend therapy, are
tested for drugs at least two times a week, appear before a judge once a
week and are required to stay employed throughout the program.

They are allowed three or four violations -- such as missed appointments or
positive urine screens -- and receive increasingly stiff punishments, from
writing assignments to inpatient treatment or jail time, for each. On the
fourth violation, they are kicked out of the program and must be tried on a
criminal charge.

If drug court participants make it through 12 consecutive months of
sobriety with fewer than four violations, they graduate and their felony
conviction is erased.

Drug court proponents cite lower recidivism rates among graduates than
incarcerated felons as signs that the programs work for those addicts who
are willing to dedicate themselves to it.

Since the Charlottesville program started in 1997, 199 defendants have
joined. Of those, 58 have graduated, 96 have quit or been kicked out and 45
are still in the program.

Circuit Judge Edward L. Hogshire, who presides over the
Charlottesville-Albemarle Drug Court, said he is unsure how the program,
which received $237,500 from the state in 2001, will get by without state
funding.

"The disappointment lies in the fact that this isn't something that should
be privately funded. This is something that should be funded with state
funds, like the jails and prisons," Hogshire said. "This is one thing we've
done that actually works."

And while drug court funding technically could be restored as a legislative
conference committee hashes out the final state budget, legislators and
drug court administrators say that is unlikely.

"This is extremely shortsighted. As one legislator put it, we're eating our
seed corn," said Del. Mitchell Van Yahres, D-Charlottesville.